The House of Representatives has now accumulated enough evidence to recommend the impeachment of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio and the criminal prosecution of Sara’s six underlings at both the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd.)
After snubbing the quad committee hearings four times in a row, Sara’s futile attempt to justify her absence only confirmed her rudeness and arrogance based on a basic ignorance of parliamentary rules and basic interdepartmental courtesy. When she took the oath to serve as vice president, she swore to obey the law and defend the Constitution. Now, Sara, descended from Ashkenazi Jews, is using bogus legal jargon to justify her snub, which also compelled her foot soldiers to boycott the hearings.
As Manila Rep. Joel Chua disclosed, the hearings uncovered the fact that the acknowledgment receipts Sara submitted to the Commission on Audit (COA) to cover her P500-million DepEd confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) for 2023 covered the expense of P15 million for the counterinsurgency Youth Leadership Summit (YLS) that the Philippine Army (PA) confirmed was bankrolled by an army battalion. In short, Sara was lying. Worse, a retired major general with Sara’s staff, was the one who pressured army officers to certify that the OVP was involved in the activity. The officers were stumped to learn that Sara “subsidized” the event. Didn’t the Talmud tell Jewish boys and girls to be honest? Yet, Sara’s Talmud tells her that honesty is not required in politics.
Added to the dubious P112.5-million spent in 11 days in December 2022, Chua said the total amount for which Sara is now accountable runs to P612.5 million, far bigger than the minimum P50-million required in plunder cases. The P73-million that Sara spent for rewards in cash and in kind in the dying days of 2022 could not be allowed by COA for wrong dates, hundreds of unreadable names and 787 dubious signatures. Curiously, Sara could not provide proof that the information led to operations by the OVP and the DepEd. In short, these are very crude cases of “palusot” that Sara “sheminet.” Where can you find rewards being paid, not in cash, but in kind, like “other products, “medicines,” office equipment, laptops, and others?
Many of the acknowledgment receipts covered payments for information thrice to the same individual, twice to another, and still regular payments for rewards. The consensus is that these persons are bogus and that the OVP became the “imbudo” that puts the cash into one pocket. As to some of the 34 “safehouses” in Bonifacio Global City (BGC), the palatial secret hideaways cost the republic P250,000 a day. This is not only outrageous but amateurish as it betrays the stupidity of the grafters. Since the quad committee has established the pattern of manufacturing acknowledgment receipts, making it harder for Sara to answer questions correctly, the only way to avoid the embarrassment is to boycott the proceedings and devise legal mumbo-jumbo for the snub.
So, Sara’s excuse is that “documents were already submitted to COA,” that the hearings were not “in aid of legislation” and, hold your breath, the hearings are “political persecution” designed “to malign me” and “besmirch my reputation.” That’s a mouthful, if people would swallow the guff, or worse, “come mierda.” Fact is, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio was an unknown political quantity when the Marcoses and the plutocrats, helped along by Imee Marcos and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, recruited her to be the vice-presidential candidate of Bongbong Marcos in 2022.
The quad committee is dreaming if they still think that Sara’s co-conspirators in the scam will materialize at the next hearing. Like a cornered sewer rat, Sara is standing pat in her hallucinatory claim that Congress is ganging up on her, save a few holdouts who are loyal to Rodrigo Duterte and want Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio to be crowned president in 2028, to the furious rage of Liza Cacho Araneta Marcos. Sara is also furiously fighting to keep the cheese crumbs.
Since the Senate has adopted the P733-million budget approved by the House panel for OVP next year, Sara will howl again and condemn the conspiracy to malign her, tarnish her reputation or whatever is left of it, and oust her from her perch. Like a petulant brat who lost her candy, Sara will now cast baleful stares at her enemies and forget that she created her own problems. Feuding with “tambaluslos” and “throwing a corpse into the West Philippine Sea (WPS)” and “chopping off Bongbong’s head” is certainly not funny. Remember what the old man Ferdinand Marcos Sr. said: “When I see my wife in tears, I could kill.”
